Rings and Flings
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: Set after Sever and contains spoilers for the series, particularly that book. I can't give much of a summary without giving things away for Sever, so I'll just put this: Even after four years, sometimes it's hard for Cecily to deal with the cards that life has dealt her, but can she find a light in someone that she never would have expected to connect with?
1. Chapter 1

It took me years after Linden's death to convince myself that simply taking off my wedding ring wasn't some sort of act of infidelity. When I finally did take it off – four years after Linden's death – I did so only after I had convinced myself that it was simply because I needed to take that step in moving on, and had nothing to do with the young man who was constantly flirting with me, latest arrival to the mansion, Silas.

* * *

Cecily took a deep breath and glanced up at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. "You can do this." she admonished herself quietly. "It's time to move on."

Before she could lose her nerve, she took off her wedding band and dropped it into her jewelry cabinet, slamming the drawer closed. Hopefully, it would be out of sight, out of mind. But it wasn't. She felt like she was naked without it, and like everyone was noticing that she was no longer wearing it. The day was torture.

* * *

The next morning, before she left her bedroom, Cecily stood staring at her jewelry cabinet. She opened the drawer of rings and stared some more, all the while trying to make a decision. She desperately wanted to put her wedding ring back on – her hand literally felt cold without it – but something told her that if she let herself do that, it would never come off again, that she would never be in another relationship. And now that she had sixty plus years ahead of her to consider, did she really want to spend all of that time alone?

No, she decided, she wouldn't put her wedding ring back on. Instead, she would find a compromise. She could wear _a _ring on her ring finger for a little while, just not her wedding ring.

She grabbed a ring blindly and slammed the small drawer shut again for the second time in as many days. Turning her back to the cabinet, she slid the other ring onto her finger – a cheap, metal one with a fake, light pink jewel in the center.

Cecily shrugged. _Oh well, it serves the purpose_. At any other time, she wouldn't have been so practical, but she wasn't going to open the drawer back up and choose a different one. She doubted that she could ignore her wedding band a second time.

When she opened the door to her bedroom, she jumped, startled. Silas was casually leaning against the doorjamb.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to scare you, Queen."

Cecily gave him a scathing glare. "No harm done, but I've told you before not to call me by that ridiculous nickname."

"Why shouldn't I?" By some sort of unspoken mutual agreement, they started together towards the dining room for breakfast with everyone else as Silas continued on, "After all, I still call Rhine 'Princess'-"

"Which she still despises." Cecily interrupted him to point this out, but Silas went on as if she hadn't even said a word.

"-And you are much more royal-seeming than she is, so the name 'Queen' fits you perfectly. And besides," Here he grinned his most charming smile at her. "I like it."

"Well, I don't."

"Aw, it'll grow on you."

"No, I'm sure it won't."

"It will, too."

"It won't."

"Really?" Rhine interrupted their dispute as Silas and Cecily made their way past the dining room doorway. "Twenty-one and eighteen, and still arguing like your four year old son?"

Cecily stiffened, and though she knew that Rhine hadn't meant it like it sounded, she couldn't help reminding her had been sister wife, "Bowen is not his son in any way, shape, or form. Silas may be good with him and they may like each other, but Bowen is Linden's son, not his."

Cecily's eyes darkened when she heard Rhine mutter "yet" as the blonde looked down at the table.

* * *

That evening, as she was getting ready for bed, Cecily noticed that the skin of her finger had turned green around the ring that she had chosen to wear. Oh well, she decided. She still didn't trust herself to open that jewelry cabinet drawer one more time.

She crawled under the covers of her bed, sighing. Was it ironic, she wondered, that, despite the growing number of people in the mansion, she felt more lonely now than she ever had when Linden was here with only a few other people and the servants?

Out of habit, she began to twist the ring on her finger. But it wasn't her wedding ring, and it just wasn't the same. Frustrated with that fact, she flung her arm listlessly to the side, into the moonlight pouring through her bedroom window, and glared at the ring. Again her eye was caught by the ring of her dark green skin. It looked almost… ghostly.

_It's like the ring knows that part of me still wants to hold onto Linden. _

The thought had crossed her mind before she could stop it, and then it stayed. She closed her eyes tightly when the pain washed over her as she realized once again that her husband would never be coming back to her and their son.

He had been gone four years, and she'd had just as long to deal with that fact, but one more time – Cecily promised herself that this would be the last time – she fell into a fitful sleep to the sound of her own crying.

* * *

**This is my first CGT story, so reviews would be beyond awesome! By the way, feel free to suggest a better title for the story if you think of one. Thanks, guys (although most of you reading this are probably girls)!:)**


	2. Chapter 2

"I swear!" Cecily jumped in surprise before glancing at the ground and tucking a lock of her red hair behind her ear the next morning.

Silas had been waiting in front of her bedroom door again.

He just grinned unrepentantly. Apparently he was feeling especially annoying today. "Well, don't you look lovely this morning," he remarked sarcastically.

"Shut up." Cecily glared half-heartedly up at him.

She hadn't put an ounce of effort into how she looked this morning, even coming very close to asking Elle to simply bring a tray up to her room, but that would've brought practically the whole house up to her room to check on her, which was the exact opposite of what she wanted to happen. Wanting to prolong any sort of human contact for as long as possible – a side effect of the previous night – she hadn't even let Elle into the bedroom to help her with her hair or makeup. This meant that she was wearing faded khaki capris and an almost too big, pale pink sweater, with her hair up in a sloppy ponytail and no more makeup then it took to cover the bags under her eyes that spoke to her essentially sleepless night.

Silas' smile fell into a concerned frown as he noticed that she wasn't her usual self. "Hey, Queen, are you alright?"

"Fine." She answered softly and far too unconvincingly, without even admonishing him over the nickname, and then looked back down at the carpeted floor. How was she supposed to sound convincing to him if she couldn't even convince herself this morning?

"Do you feel sick?" he asked, apparently feeling not so annoying after all.

Yes, she did, in ways that she couldn't possibly get the player that was Silas to understand. "No."

"Are you sure? Do you want me to have Elle bring you up a tray so that you can go back to bed?"

"I just want to go down to breakfast!" Her voice shouldn't have broken with that sentence, but it did.

Doing one of the most humiliating things that she could have ever imagined, she burst into tears right in front of the macho womanizer, Silas. The look that came into his eyes was one of panic, but he didn't run, like Cecily half wished that he would. Instead, he scooped her up and carried her back into her bedroom, cradling her like she had Bowen when her son was an infant. He shut the bedroom door with his foot and proceeded to lay her back on her bed. He knelt beside the bed while she cried the whole time. She closed her eyes tightly and burst into a fresh wave of tears when he tenderly brushed strands of her hair out of her eyes.

"Cecily? This isn't a cold. What's wrong, love?"

"Don't call me that!" she demanded harshly, tears turning to sobs when Silas unknowingly used Linden's pet name for her.

"I'm sorry," he said, although he couldn't possibly understand why there was a need for an apology to begin with.

He began to rub his thumb across the back of her hand, and she curled her fingers into a fist, her nails biting against her palm. The physical pain, however, went unnoticed beside all of the other types of pain swirling in the young widow.

"Cecily," he asked softly, "this isn't your wedding ring that you're wearing, is it?"

She shook her head and buried her head in her pillow, still unable to speak and giving up all pretenses of trying to pull herself back together.

"Oh." She flinched when he said that solitary word, because it sounded like he had come to an understanding of why she was such an emotional mess.

She had the presence of mind to stiffen a little, at least, when he shifted from the floor to sitting beside her on the bed. He pulled her into a sitting position, and, against all of her better judgment, she didn't hesitate when he pulled her into an embrace. They sat like this for a long while, until her sobs had quieted into soft crying.

"You know," Silas informed her carefully, "When I was about thirteen, there was this girl at the orphanage. Jessa. She was the same age as me, and we were convinced that we were in love. We almost had the woman who ran the orphanage talked into letting us get married."

Cecily stilled as her tears began to dry. She had never heard this before. Silas didn't notice the change in her. He only sighed heavily and kept telling her his story.

"But then one day, she was sent out to get some groceries. And she never came home." Cecily felt him shrug. "Gatherers, I guess." Against his chest, Cecily heard him swallow. "She would be dead by now."

Cecily flinched. "I'm sorry, Silas."

He shrugged again. "I've made my peace with it. Maybe she got married to some rich guy and lived happily ever after, at least for the next seven years. I hope so."

"Wait a second," Cecily sat up straight and looked at him curiously. "You actually _like_ the idea that she married another man?"

Silas paused to consider his answer for a short moment before he, knowing full well what he was saying, answered, "Better she be married to another man than pining after me for the rest of her life, right?"

Cecily bit her lip and looked down at the comforter of the bed, nodding because that was the answer that he wanted her to give him.

"Anyway, my point is: it does get better. Easier."

"But it's been four years!" she protested.

"And it took me at least that long to quit looking out the window for Jessa, at least every once in awhile.

"Yeah, you're going to have bad days – and I know that that's all this is for you – but you're also going to have great days, Cecily. So here's the plan: today you can pine to your heart's content, but tomorrow, you and I and Bowen are going to have a picnic on the golf course."

Cecily answered flatly, "No."

"You don't feel like doing it now, I know that. But that's the point. You have to give yourself a time to get out of your mood. You have to, for Bowen if nothing else."

"Don't use my son against me," she demanded sourly.

"Would you rather I hog-tied you and dragged you to the golf course?" he asked with a dry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Because I will. It's your choice. You can come on your own two feet, or slung across my shoulders like a sack of potatoes."

Cecily rolled her eyes in exasperation, but something told her that she would do well not to put "hog-tying" her past him. "My feet work just fine," she decided grudgingly.

Silas beamed. "Great. Now, what do you say we go get some breakfast before somebody comes up here hunting for us?"

Cecily nodded. They stood up and went to the door together, but the sight that met her eyes when she opened the door made her want to slam the door closed again and lock it for good measure. Rhine stood on the other side of the door, hand poised to knock, staring wide-eyed at Cecily and Silas with the fact that she had the wrong idea clearly shining in her eyes.

* * *

**This is my first CGT story, so reviews would be beyond awesome! By the way, feel free to suggest a better title for the story if you think of one. Thanks, guys (although most of you reading this are probably girls)!:)**


	3. Chapter 3

"This isn't what it looks like it is."

Cecily wasn't sure who said it - her or Silas - but - judging by the smile that was snaking its way across Rhine's face - it had to be said. Rhine's eyes began to glitter maniacally, and Cecily half expected to be attacked by her had been sister wife in a demand for information. However, Cecily knew that what Rhine actually did would turn out to be much worse in the long run. The blonde spun and darted back down the hall and into the elevator, already screaming for Elle. Both Cecily and SIlas hurried after her, hoping to be able to join her in the elevator and explain - thereby calm her down - before she reached the others on the lower level of the house. They didn't make it in time, and the doors of the elevators closed as they rounded the corner of the hallway.

All the same, out of desperation, Cecily pounded the button to the elevator a couple of times, to no avail. Groaning loudly, Cecily turned her back to the wall and slammed against it.

"No..." she moaned.

"Is it really that big of a deal?" Silas asked cluelessly.

Cecily sighed, deciding to be patient with him since he had just been so kind to her. "Yes, it is. Rhine and Elle have been trying to get me started dating again for literally years. If they think that we are together in any form of the word, there will be no end to the matchmaking that will occur."

"Can I see Rhine matchmaking; yes. Elle? No, not really."

Cecily sighed again, explaining tiredly, "She will in her own way. She'll dress me up in more eye-catching clothes, more makeup, more elaborate hairdos."

"Like she did when LInden was around?"

Cecily nodded, gaze landing on her shoes. After another moment, Silas nodded as well, apparently at a loss for words for once in his life. As the silence between them grew to become decidedly too long, Silas pushed the elevator button.

This time it opened for them, so he asked, "Well, are we ready to go face the music, Queen?"

He grinned as she glared at him before stepping into the elevator.

As they approached the dining room downstairs, everything sounded surprisingly normal. The reason for that, they discovered, lay in the fact that neither Rhine nor Elle were actually present in the room.

"So, where's Princess?" Silas asked casually, stuffing a piece of bacon into his mouth as he flopped onto his seat at the table.

Gabriel answered, "She came down a minute ago in a tissy, screaming for Elle, and the two of them headed off to who knows where." Rhine's sort-of boyfriend eyed Silas suspiciously. "Would you have an explanation for that?"

Cecily answered for him, saying cooly, "Overreaction to circumstantial evidence."

"It's not like Rhine to overreact, at least not any more." Rowan pointed out, coming into the conversation.

"Believe me," Cecily said tersely. "She will overreact about this."

The conversation was mercifully dropped after Gabriel muttered, "Apparently."

* * *

That night, desperate to drive away the tears that she felt coming on once again, Cecily padded across the darkened hallway, intending to ask Rhine for permission to crawl in bed with her, as she had done numerous times before. However, she heard another voice already on the other side of Rhine's door - Gabriel's - and knew that her plan was out of the question. Instead, quite on their own, quite without her realizing it, and quite without her permission, her feet carried her to the floor containing Silas' room, even up to his bedroom door. Still a little shocked to find herself there – not to mention that she was exhausted and on an emotional precipice – she knocked, then took the incoherent mumbling from within the room as her permission to enter.

Seeing her silhouette thanks to the muted light from the hallway, Silas mumbled the one-word question, "Linden?"

Cecily nodded, and Silas opened the sheets to her without a word. She crawled cautiously into the bed with him and he held her close, neither one of them really sure what she wanted. He waited until she kissed him first – a senseless act fueled by the desperate need to forget – but from there on, neither one of them needed any encouragement, and a kiss between them quickly turned into something more.

* * *

With only a quarter of an hour until Elle would be due to show up at her bedroom door, Cecily made herself slip out of Silas' embrace as he slept, out of his bed, and out of his room.

But out of his life? She suddenly hoped not.

She scurried quietly back to the wives' floor, hoping all the while that she wouldn't be caught. The funny thing was, though, she realized, she didn't feel guilty for sleeping with Silas; she just didn't want to add fuel to Rhine and Elle's fire.

Cecily didn't do herself any favors in that department, however, when she made the decision that same morning that if she could sleep with another man then she could certainly do without a piece of junk ring, or any ring for that matter. So the ring came off and she placed it back in her jewelry cabinet, spotting her wedding ring in the process. When she saw that ring, there was, surprisingly, only a small twinge of emotion. Maybe it shouldn't have surprised her though, because, after all, she had decided that it was time to move on. The previous night had been an unmistakable step – a leap, really – in that process.

Before going down to breakfast, Cecily went into the bathroom and tried to wash away the green tint to the band of skin on her finger, what she had quickly come to think of as Linden's ghost ring. But it wouldn't wash off. She frowned at it, deciding to take it as a sign. Maybe she wasn't ready for another relationship just yet – not for a few more days at least.

But this decision didn't stop her from letting Silas kiss her when they went on their picnic with Bowen. Or at any other time in the following week, really, so long as no one else was around.

* * *

A week later, on their way back to the mansion from another picnic with Bowen, Silas remarked, "Everyone is starting to catch onto us, you know."

"Yeah." Cecily sighed, picnic basket swinging from one hand as she kept her eyes on Bowen, who had wandered ahead of the duo.

"We're going to have to tell them something soon."

"I know, but what?"

"Well," Silas spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I don't know about you, but I'd sure like it if I could call you my girlfriend."

Cecily smiled, deciding, "I'd like that too."

Silas grinned, capturing her hand in his. Looking down at their entwined fingers, Cecily realized that during the course of the week, the "ghost ring" had faded and was now gone.

* * *

**This is my first CGT story, so reviews would be beyond awesome! By the way, feel free to suggest a better title for the story if you think of one. Thanks, guys (although most of you reading this are probably girls)! This story is over and the next one that you'll see from me (hopefully later today) is a Criminal Minds one-shot entitled "Unseen.":)**


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